Aliases
by jsfan4ever
Summary: There was a spot in the room that never saw light... JS. Final chapter added.
1. Shadows

The rating's K+ and before I forget... I don't own anything but the story.

This is set sometime during their affair. I'll post more from time to time and make it a series of short JS vignettes. They're undated, but each one takes place in the same hotel room, on a different night. Thanks to Mariel for beta-reading this!

Aliases

_What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story,  
And the greatest good is little enough: for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams.  
−Pedro Calderon de la Barca_

  
I. Shadows

There was a spot in the room that never saw light. They had found it the very first time, when he had walked through the door on an unusually chilly summer night, and when she had followed him, not knowing where he was going, not knowing what they were doing.

She loved the room, loved how the darkness they crossed every time blinded senses and shut out reason. Only the feelings remained, swirling in the air, teasing them with possibility, turning a vision into reality− and for these stolen instants they spent incognito, it seemed only natural that they would give everything they owned to each other.

It was fairly simple. He wasn't here as Jack Malone, and she wasn't here as Samantha Spade. This didn't qualify as an affair− for he was no longer married. The ring around his finger no longer meant what it would mean to anyone on the outside. It didn't speak of vows and promises, didn't scream of infidelity when it scraped her skin. That ring held no more signification than the tie he hastily took off or the shoes he quickly discarded. It was an accessory, and just that; it was a golden band, but it wasn't _the _golden ring that binds your heart and ties your hands and turns you into an adulterer if ever you forget what it represents.

As she had done countless times in the past, she entered the hotel room behind him, and before she passed the door that led to the small bathroom on her right, her face was momentarily plunged into darkness. He lost sight of her eyes, and when she emerged from the shadows, she was changed, divested of her name and everything that attached her to him through office ties− and he was changed too, losing his title and everything that could remind them that he was her boss, her employer, that man she'd dreamt about and knew she'd never have and sworn to her mother that she wouldn't go after.

She had never meant to fall for him and he had never meant to fall for her, but they had, and for this hour, she would be just Her and he would be just Him and those would be their only aliases for the moment. On days like these, coming here was the only way to forget about the outside, to forget about blood and guns and murderers. On days like these, he shared her desperate, frantic need to make it go away, make it stop, make it all somehow disappear. And on days like these, on nights like these, their aliases were names borrowed from strangers and superimposed on expressions that belonged to them only− a wordless understanding, a mutual craving, a burning desire to find themselves in each other.

He'd taken off that fake smile and stepped off the stage for the very first time in his life, and she'd followed him, discarded the makeup and forgotten about the pre-planned scenario, and in losing their names and attires and scripts, they'd managed to stop being Samantha Spade and Jack Malone. They were no one and they were nowhere, for there was a spot in the room that never saw light, a spot he'd crossed once and that she had crossed after him, on an endless day when all seemed lost.

And on that day, and on the days after that, they kept entering this room, still not knowing where they were going, and they kept going there together.


	2. Magician

On a different night...

II. Magician 

He'd stayed in places like these in the past, hotels with cracked walls and cheap soap bars and clean but worn out bed sheets− yet this felt different. Tonight, he was seeing everything through eyes he never knew he possessed. The walls were crystal mirrors, the ceiling was comprised of graceful arches, and the lamps were silver candlesticks.

Tonight… he'd entered as a magician. He would change the room effortlessly; play with the luminosity and play with the colors and make the illusion perfect. He was an illusionist; he would snap his fingers and the light would be on and off and the shadows would change and they'd hide in the darkness together.

He trailed his fingers along the wooden bar, noticing the small dents for the first time. They looked like carvings… subtle inscriptions he now had the power to interpret, because tonight, he was a magician. He looked down at his hands, and he was wearing gloves, white and spotless and they seemed to be made of silk; he was holding a deck of cards and a wand, and he knew all the tricks− he'd transform the room and claim it, claim the night as his, and claim the world as theirs.

When he looked up, she was standing across the bed near the window, watching him. Her gaze was intimate; a gaze that could only ever be associated with her and this particular room, these particular, private instants. He liked it when she smiled at him like that; when he felt cold and warm at the same time and she ignited feelings inside him that no illusionist could ever have recreated without her.

She watched, fascinated, as he produced two mugs and how, in what felt like seconds, he conjured up two cups of coffee. Strong for him, and dark like his eyes. Foaming, steaming for her; a cappuccino. The smell rose around them, teasing senses. He breathed in the scent and appreciated the flavor and the hot liquid slowly slid down his throat, worked its magic and spread its warmth. The temperature in the room shifted, neither of them surprised. Magicians make things feel warmer; they enter a quiet, gloomy room and transform it with a snap of their fingers; they cast spells on the furniture and spells on the walls and spells on people themselves.

He was making the moment magic− magic like their first kiss, magic like their next, magic like this place. He brushed past her to take off his jacket, leaving it on the back of a seat that had turned into a finely worked armchair. The carpet felt like a thick rug when he walked to her, and the curtains were worthy of those you find in castles. But he wasn't the jester, he was the king. A king and a magician and not the kind of man who calls a girl for the night and asks her to meet him in a room like this one; not the guy who comes here for one reason alone, to use and to be used. He was here to make tonight magical, to enchant the room and turn it into something alive and exceptional.

A flick of the wrist, and their empty mugs vanished into thin air. She'd missed that− the magic acts, the ease with which he exercised control over the room; the intensity in his eyes when he looked at her as if he'd never quite been here before.

The flame that lit the candlestick vacillated, and it was only then that she noticed his silken gloves and the deck of cards in his hands and the décor he'd created so skillfully to fit with her mood. He shuffled the cards in the air and dealt them, making pairs and flushes and straights, imagining a new combination each time. The deck came alive in his hands. Clubs and spades and diamonds and hearts and she watched, hypnotized, as he played a game only she could understand. Diamond ace, diamond queen. A full house. Tonight, he was a magician and an illusionist. A jack. A knight. Four of a kind, another flush, and she knew there was only one card left−

He drew a joker. She looked up at him, surprised and not sure of what it meant until he retrieved two cards she didn't know he'd kept in his sleeve. He handed them to her, a small smirk pulling at the corners of his lips.

A king and a queen. Now she reciprocated his amusement, meeting his eyes and letting him know she appreciated what he'd done. The room was no longer bare; it held tapestries and a canopy bed and carved furniture. This was their kingdom. Tonight he was a magician, a king, an architect.

He had entered a room and built her a castle.


	3. Dreamer

(Disclaimer etc, see chapter 1)

Well here's the next installement... and yes, it's all metaphorical. This one is mostly from Sam's point of view. Thanks to everyone who reviewed, the feedback is awesome!

III. Dreamer

She had woken up at the break of dawn, before the sun had risen high enough to cast its late autumn light on the frozen city. But now, as they stood contemplating the sunset together, she allowed herself to forget about the cold and the darkness and the unwelcoming world that was both so close and so far from this moment. It was warm− warm in the room and warm in his arms and she let her mind wander to places it had never travelled to before.

Tonight, she'd walked through that dark spot in the room and become a dreamer.

He had fallen quiet with her, watching the dusk, the last rays of light bathing her face in a warm glow. He watched her dream. She observed the clouds, the rainbow of colors, telling him how the blue made her think of the ocean and how the billows of white were like smoke or foam you can never really catch. She told him which lines to follow and where the clouds melded together to form shapes; how the red became orange and how the orange faded into yellow and white.

She had dreamt that sunset. Dreamt about this moment. Dreamt about him. She wasn't the woman you call for a few hours or a night, wasn't the kind of woman who enters a hotel room late in the evening to meet a man who'd come only for that. That wasn't who she was, because this place wasn't really like other places where women like her become women like that, and where men like him can meet these women. This place wasn't about sleeping with your boss or risking too much, it wasn't work related, it wasn't filled with guilt and confusion, wasn't linked to the outside. This place was a haven. Here, they became no one; they became artists, philosophers, magicians. Dreamers.

It felt only natural that they would stand in front of the window together with the colors in background. She was a dreamer−and what was this but a waking dream? A waking dream that was more than an illusion, more than a thought, for in dreams you just imagine emotions, imagine things and sounds and smells, and here, he wasn't a vision, he was a man she could see and touch and feel and love as much as she wanted to. She dreamt of a world where this wouldn't be wrong. A world where murderers didn't exist and didn't target kids and where she wouldn't have to look for all the lost souls out there; a world where he wouldn't have to face kidnappers and criminals and feel the pain of all those who hadn't come home. She wanted a world like this place.

One day, she knew, she'd enter the room as an artist, she'd take a brush and she would paint the colors, paint the room, paint him. Her alias would be that of a painter and… she'd paint their dreams. She'd make it real− make them real, make this moment tangible, because she was a dreamer and dreams aren't meant to be explained, they aren't supposed to be analysed and understood− dreams just are. So she'd dream of paradise, dream of light and colors and warmth, and he'd hold her and dream with her.

He'd come here for an escape, a moment; but dreamers have more than instants, more than minutes and hours that go by and can be counted and measured; dreamers possess more than time.

Dreamers have eternity.


	4. Musician

Thank you all for the wonderful comments... you guys are incredible : )

This still takes place in the same room. After Jack the magician and Sam the dreamer, here's Jack the musician. I'll try to post more soon but in the meantime, enjoy!

IV. Musician

He had come as a musician. He wasn't holding a guitar or a violin or playing the piano; he didn't have a flute or even a harmonica− yet he had all the notes and he knew exactly how to arrange them in a perfect tune, knew how to produce a melody that warmed the heart and left you eagerly waiting for more. He was the architect of the most beautiful music in the world; he played the tune in the room, around her, with her, a tune that he whispered into her ears and spoke to her heart.

She couldn't see the score he was using, then realized he was using none, that he was finding the notes as he went along, humming quietly, finding the lows and the highs, composing flawlessly. He sang to her, sang with his gaze and his mouth and his hands; sang to her in a language only he knew and that only she could decipher. It was sad and joyful at the same time, slightly melancholic, his soul in tune with his heart. She followed the song, followed him, followed the notes as they swivelled around the room, reaching the ceiling, the wooden door, gliding along the carpet and filling the air around them both.

It felt surreal, and the dreamer in her wondered why she'd never seen this side of him. He'd come as a dedicated artist and she could tell he really was one, that once delivered of the ropes that bound him to the outside, this was who he truly was, and suddenly, it stopped feeling surreal, it became right. He was the musician and she was playing with him, and it required no effort, because they were already in tune.

This wasn't a stage and they didn't have to perform. This was a refuge− a place where their daily lives could be put in parentheses, a place where his haunted eyes would become joyful because he would hear the notes. A place where she could listen to him without having to be one step away, one glance away, a place where she could come at night and simply… listen to him. The world didn't belong to FBI agents, it didn't belong to girls with unrealizable dreams and men who had a wife− but it belonged to musicians, who created it and shaped it and decorated it at their will.

She could see the trees he was singing about; the leaves and the colors and the birds chipping in the sunlight. She could see the orchard he was depicting− fruits and light and a graveled path with a bench where they could sit. The leaves were falling, twirling in the wind, landing smoothly at their feet. They were yellow and red and green and brown, and she smiled because it reminded her of the colors she'd seen in the clouds. Then he produced a harp− he usually didn't have instruments, but just for this once, his fingers would play over the strings and accompany his voice, and he'd sing a hymn to nature and beauty. She would let the soft breeze caress her skin and hear the whispers of the wind that accompanied a tune that was meant only for them, a tune he had composed thinking about her.

The room came back into focus and she smiled, and he smiled back, because tonight, neither wanted to leave. He'd entered as a musician and he would remain one. He'd play through the night and the next morning, she'd wake up at his side and the notes and the melody and the colored autumn leaves would still be here. And then, when she would open her overnight bag to find a pair of socks and her gun and her badge, she would look down, and wouldn't find her weapon.

Instead, she'd find a harp.


	5. Painter

And... the story goes on with Sam the painter.

V. Painter

He'd been a musician, but now it was her turn, and she'd chosen to be a painter. She found the right colors and her fingers trailed his skin and remembered it and painted it, making out every curve, sketching his face in her mind. She drew his portrait and colored it, using the brushes at her disposal. She added a hint of darkness here and there, then switched to vivid colors, depicting his moods, the atmosphere in the room, the way the angles of his chin seemed to fall in and out of the light every time he moved.

She looked at him and lay at his side, taking in every detail. She observed, she watched the colors and watched the lines, how the darkness fell on his hair, how his eyes glinted with affection, how his fingers tightened around hers. She watched him being himself, because this was how she would paint him. Whether he chose to be a musician, or a poet, or a sculptor; whether they became magicians or jugglers, artists or dreamers. Whether he was awake or asleep, talking or thinking, looking at her hands or looking at her eyes; whether he made love to her or just held her− this was how she would remember him.

Tonight, she had a white canvas instead of a white board and a marker and a timeline. Tonight, she would design the painting and create the shapes, and draw the outlineof their lives. She'd make the frame and find the equations, the ones meant for them only, and she'd illustrate tonight with a large variety of tones, because the world outside was so grey and she wanted color. Color amongst the darkness. And she wanted the room to be light, a light that she'd paint to keep with them forever. Darkness would remain, buit it would be kept to one dark spot, a place where they could hide. The rest would be bathed in a warm, soothing hue.

She wouldn't try to paint the world that existed outside the room. They'd been in it together, left it together, and had been in it long enough to know that they'd rather be here− here with the colors and the lines, the shapes and the music, the magic dreams and the light and the shadows. She settled to reproducing his features. A brush on the canvas, followed by a knowing, understanding glance; a new line in her drawing, thick or thin, black or colored, followed by a brush of his lips on hers.

She'd paint him sitting, walking, standing; she'd paint him smiling, she'd paint him while he was lost in reverie. And she'd paint him without help, because she knew him by heart− she'd paint his eyes first, then his face, then the room around him. She'd draw his silhouette faultlessly, and then she'd perfect her work; she wouldn't miss an inch of his skin, wouldn't forget his slightly ruffled hair, his white shirt, his loosened tie. She'd feel his energy in the room and she'd draw that too, along with the slight smirk he'd be wearing if she asked him to pose. And above all, she'd draw the secrets he'd shown her− how he could become a magician and change the room and turn into a musician. She'd draw the notes he had once sung.

Then he would rise. He would contemplate the painting, and he'd be only half surprised by her talent. He would move again, and the light would change, and she'd go back to finessing her masterpiece, adding a touch here and a touch there, one final brush, one final detail. Finally, she would take a quill and sign the name she had taken upon entering this room, and with gravity, he would sign his name under hers, and they'd fulfill an unspoken, unwritten oath− that they would always be here for each other, in a room or a painting, that they'd forever be artists who dreamt and painted and lived and breathed together. He'd take her hand in his, stay at her side, and help her hang the painting on a wall that would now be like a mirror to the world they had created.

And then it would be perfect.


	6. Poet

VI. Poet

He was a poet. He was a poet and he recited rhymes, found the words that fit best and composed poems; he told her his dreams and let her know of his feelings with his lines. And he imagined other worlds, because that's what poets do− dream and imagine and turn harsh reality into something joyful and beautiful. He walked to her casually, and held her with an ease that made her wonder how it could ever be wrong; and then he whispered promises that she wanted to think were not lies disguised as truths, but words that he truly believed, that she believed, that they would both believe forever.

Now he was composing a ballad, an almost-song that reminded her he'd once been a musician, and she still remembered the notes, how to play with him and sing with him and become one and the same. But this time he had chosen poetry, and she understood why− because poems rhyme and rhymes are all different and all unique. He knew exactly what to say, what to whisper and what emotions to convey. Once, he stood and went to gaze outside the window; and she joined him in front of the large panel.

He started counting the stars. It was a joke at first− a light comment, a playful suggestion. But she caught his reflection in the window and her eyes glimpsed the white dots in the sky, and she smiled, because this was expected. Tonight, he was the poet, and it seemed only right that they would count the stars, count the bright spots in the illuminated sky. Long ago, it seemed, it had been dusk, she'd been a dreamer, and they'd watched the clouds; but now it was dark, and he was the poet who murmured the names of constellations. She listened, fascinated, watching as his descriptions encompassed a vast area of the night.

Poets aren't immortal, but she knew his rhymes were; she could feel in the melancholy behind the stanzas that he was trying to make things last, even if the time they spent here together was short. Those lines… they made her heart swell and filled her soul with hope, and they would remain long after he stopped being a poet and she stopped being a painter and a dreamer. They would still be alive after they'd leave the room; they would still be here the next day, waiting for them near the window, waiting for them in their dreams, reminding them that tonight, he'd improvised himself as a poet and the room had given him the inspiration he sought.

So for now, she listened intently as he told her the story of Cassiopea, the mother of Andromeda, showed her the stars at the apogee of the vault of heaven. She followed the patterns with him, and he knew them all− the stories of Aldebaran, of Betelgeuse, of Orion and all the constellations in the Southeast. He even told her about the stars they couldn't see. He mentioned Leo and Cancer and Cygnus and Aquarius, told her about the legends and the myths. She leaned back into his embrace, enjoying the feel of his warm arms around her; and when she asked how many stars he had counted, he just turned to look at her, and she could feel his grin in the dark.

He'd counted them all, he'd seen them all, but somehow, they were no longer important, because tonight he was seeing her. And that's what he told her− because poems allow you to say things that you can't ordinarily say, and nights like these make you forget that on the outside, there is another world where those who speak their true feelings to a woman who isn't their wife can only end up as fallen bards walking the avenue of the ages alone.

But tonight, he would count the stars in her gaze. Tonight, he'd be a prince and she'd be a princess among the heroes and villains, and together, they would rule the world from this room.


	7. Writer

Well... I'm afraid the end is drawing near... the next chapter will be the last. In the meantime, enjoy!

VII. Writer

She had entered the room as a dancer, her gait fluid, her lean body coming to rest against his in one swift movement. But now, he realized, she'd stopped being a dancer, because dancers are part of a show, and this wasn't a show. They'd both agreed to leave the spotlight for this moment, to leave the stage behind. She wasn't here to dance, wasn't here to drag him onto the scene.

She was a writer, rather. She'd write a story tonight, she'd find the words and the plot, and they'd imagine worlds of their own. They would become legend; heroes of an unreachable universe. They would have their private tales, their magic instants, they would be the characters who evolve and share secrets together. They were forever bound now, in paintings, in poems, in a ballad he had composed on a peaceful night.

There were no dragons in the room and neither of them had brought a sword, and yet this was a quest, it involved testing the limits, finding the boundaries, discovering something new every time; it was a world that belonged to her, to him, to them, a world both familiar and mysterious. She was writing a story that had never been written before, because the truth was, he'd never touched her quite like that before. And that touch, though light enough to be meaningless, held something they both knew to mean a lot. It was soft, but determined, it required no words, and yet it said everything; it was casual, tender, almost−

She struggled for a moment, wanting to write a happy end, for once, a happy end where good triumphs over evil, where the princess stays with the prince, where the magic kingdom remains magic. She wanted to get rid of the witches who bewitched and the wizards who bewizarded. But she knew the end was near. She felt it in every word, every movement, heard it in his voice and saw it in his eyes. She knew, because she was the writer; because she'd invented the plot and lived all these adventures and battled against the unknown; because she'd found courage in the strangest of places and solace in the arms of a man she'd never thought she'd fall for. And somehow, sometime in the course of the last few months, she'd found a title and written a few words, and he'd given her enough substance to write an entire book.

Now she turns to look at him, trying to find a solution to their dilemma− because authors have to do exactly that; they have to put their heroes in intricate situations and have to have readers hold their breaths with every turn of the page; and then they have to give their characters a way to win, to triumph. But as he returns her glance, that stroke of genius doesn't manifest itself; and when she silently pleads for help, he doesn't come to rescue her. He can't help her, because he doesn't have a horse and a spear and because too much time has gone by since they began this tale.

As the author, as the writer, as the hero, she knows. It is time for a conclusion.

So she'll take a last word, a last look, and write their lives; she'll take a moment and make it last; she'll take this night, and steal a tiny fragment of eternity and keep it in her heart.


	8. Light

The final chapter... 

VIII. Light

She could always tell what mood he was in. Before he even knocked, before the door opened and he became a poet, a musician, a magician… she would know.

It was the temperature, the light, the shadows, his footsteps, the silence filled with anticipation that gave him away, and yet tonight, she could hear him on the other side of the door, but couldn't tell who he would be, couldn't recognize his pace, couldn't determine if the room would grant him his wish and give him the alias he needed. Maybe tonight, he'd have an alias she'd never seen before. Maybe he'd walk through the darkness, and would come out unchanged; maybe that dark spot would be bathed in a gaudy light, exposing him, exposing her.

And he would emerge from it as the married man.

He stood for a moment in the doorway, and she'd been right. He waited, waited for the light to go out and erase his name and rid him of his identity. He waited to be turned into that anonymous individual who would be meeting another anonymous individual in an anonymous hotel room. But as he stood, immobile in the entrance, the darkness didn't come, and a faint light lingered where complete obscurity once was, and when he started walking again, with a weariness she hadn't seen in the past, he was still Jack Malone, he was still her boss, and the ring he wore was still a ring that bound hearts and screamed of infidelity to adulterers.

She hadn't recognized his steps, because she'd never heard them before, but she knew what they meant. Knew that all he was really doing was memorizing the feel of that carpet beneath his shoes, remembering the light in the room, noticing cracks in the walls or a stain on the tapestry, all these details that had always seemed secondary but that felt important tonight, because it was the last. She knew those steps could mean only one thing. She knew they meant that what they'd started in this room would end the way it had begun; knew the room would claim all their aliases back and leave them only with their true identities.

The bed creaked when he sat, and he let out a heavy breath before he turned to her. She hoped for an instant to be proven wrong, hoped that the charm in the entrance had operated properly, but then she saw the sorrow in his gaze.

Her fingers found his hand and hovered above the metal band for a moment. She tried to wring it off, but it resisted, and in that instant, she realized it was no longer the mere accessory it used to be, no longer that sort of object you can toss aside and fling to the floor like an unnecessary tie or a pair of socks or a belt buckle. She tried again, but it didn't concede, and slowly, he brought his other hand to cover hers, to stop her from trying further, to stop her from insisting.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, drew her against him, watched as the darkness in the room dissipated, and watched the dark spot in front of the door disappear. He used to like the light, but this was too much. This was a harsh light, one that left them naked and vulnerable and made it impossible to hide.

She shut her eyes, dazzled by the sudden brightness.

"Turn off the light, Jack."

He looked at her sadly when she spoke his name, knowing their last aliases were gone. Once, he would have blinked at the light and it would have vanished, and together, they would have hidden in the darkness. Once, they'd been free; she'd been a writer and a painter, and he'd been a poet and a musician.

His eyes fell to his ring and he bit his lip, speaking quietly.

"I can't, Sam."

---

_(End of Aliases)  
_

_A/N: I wasn't sure how to end this story, hesitating between a happy end and this. But I think it's fitting that J/S separated at the end, because we all know how it went down between them. __Thank you for sticking with this story and for reviewing!_

_Heloise  
(Oh yes, I do have a really name. Jsfan4ever is merely... an alias -g-)  
_


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